Thursday, April 16, 2015

Many Thanks to Those Celebrating BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT!

Here at Leap we're saying a big, BIG thank you to everyone who is making our kickoff of our Alice-in-Wonderland inspired anthology, 

                  BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT
                                                                                                                         
                                                                                                                               a success!

Thanks goes to the following people:

  • Laurie J. Edwards for having the original idea of an Alice-In-Wonderland inspired anthology for Leap;
  • Everyone spreading the word about our call for submissions;
  • All the writers who submitted their short stories to the anthology, whether they were selected, or not; 
  • Gaetano Pezzillo for creating a stunning book cover (and an animated book cover);
  • The staff that read the submissions first (Heather Elia, Shannon Delany, Judith Graves);
  • Heather Elia for creating the document that kept all the subs organized through the entire process (what an awesome intern!);
  • Kelly Hashway for editing and copy editing;
  • Judith Graves for creating our cool book trailer;
  • The rejected authors who proceeded with grace, spreading good will about the book (if you aren't in the publishing world you might not realize how appreciated that level of professionalism is);
  • Shannon Delany for doing the interior illustrations;
  • Ali Cross for formatting (and reformatting);
  • The interns (old and new) and others who spread word about the book through Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Tumblr--and all things social media;
  • The printers and staff who spent time with Shannon on the phone when she called them (multiple times) to make sure things were going well;
  • The 13 amazing authors (Charlotte Bennardo, C. Lee McKenzie, David Turnbull, Christine Norris, Jackie Horsfall, Medeia Sharif, Laura Lascarso, Tom Luke, Jessica Bayliss, Crstal Schubert, Holly Odell, Jennifer Moore, and Liam Hogan)who met all their deadlines, approached Shannon's and Judith's every request with a positive attitude, and participated in a Twitter party, and a Facebook party. We hope their careers only grow (and that we get the right opportunity so we may work with them all again).
  • Marketing Directors Jennifer Murgia and April Hamrick;
  • The bloggers helping with our book blitz;
  • The other authors of Team Leap who have been jumping in, supporting the anthology, and spreading the word--team players are the best!
  • The readers. Of course the readers! Without the readers we wouldn't be publishing books...for readers.


If you haven't gotten your copy of BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT yet, please hop on over to Amazon, or Smashwords, or iTunes and order yours now. 

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Some Visual Highlights from Our BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT Anthology's Book Birthday

Some of the many visual highlights from today's book birthday for 

BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT...

Thank you all for helping make the launch of the new Leap's first anthology!



















Monday, April 13, 2015

BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT Excerpt: Broken Tethers

The following is an excerpt from author Holly Odell's short story found in BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT.

Broken Tethers

Black crows punctuated the damp April morning with bleak conversation. Long-neglected hedges and comically unkempt shrubbery guarded the perimeter of a vast, overgrown property. A young woman fought her way through the snarled branches and emerged from a particularly slovenly-looking clump of bushes. Her appearance suggested she had already endured a gauntlet of physical indignities, of which this was the culmination.

“Come on, Alice.” She perked up. “Urban exploration is a dirty business. I should’ve thought about how messy this was actually going to be, though.” Next time she’d bring a towel, and...she looked down at her clothes...maybe a plastic jumpsuit, on second thought.

Wiping her muddy hands down the front of her jacket, she shifted attention to the object of her efforts.
At last she had a clear view of the mansion. Alice gasped. Abandoned for decades, it had slumped into an exquisite state of disrepair. “What a spectacular wreck.”

Things of beauty succumbing to the ravages of time and nature sent her heart leaping into her throat. Was it the catharsis of tragedy, the ache of nostalgia for a bygone age that thrilled her so much? Or the fact that she wasn’t supposed to be here? D, all of the above.

She forgave herself a mischievous chuckle at the thought of her phone ringing in the medicine cabinet where she “accidentally” left it. Why was the concept of voluntary solitude so difficult for some people to grasp? Certain places practically clobbered you over the head, demanding to be designated as tether-free zones. Nothing can rip the cheesecloth from the lens of a Tolkien-esque
 excursion faster than a techno ringtone or someone handing you their soda so they can pee in the bushes while badgering you about how late it’s getting. A badass adventuress can only tolerate so much pestering; she was entitled to a little harmless payback.

Her eyes roamed across the decaying exterior as she strode through the long grass to the top of the hill. After rummaging for a moment she produced a small digital camera from her pocket and took a picture of thick, tangled vines embracing the chimney, which lurched as if recoiling from the side of the house. She relished a delicious gothic shiver before resuming her assessment of the formidable structure.


Ready to go adventuring with Holly's Alice? You can order on Amazon right now!

Beware the Little White Rabbit Excerpt: Alice and Her Shadow

Author Tom Luke created an Alice and a world that combine horror and a touch of humor. The excerpt below is from his short story in BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT.


Alice and Her Shadow


It is not a moonless night, nor is the moon full. It is not a half moon, which can be argued is more symbolic than either. It is not even a crescent, which can be meaningful enough for the magical practitioner on a budget. It is a waxing gibbous. Bulging. Grotesque. And hanging too low in the sky like the misshapen eye of a cosmic horror that has taken an unusual interest in humanity.

Your name is Alice. Your last name is uninteresting and will soon be irrelevant. Your name is Alice, and you are walking home. It is too dark for your mother’s purposes, and she worries about you being out too late, but Katherine’s house is less than fifteen minutes away, and down two hills. No one waiting to ambush a defenseless teenage girl is going to bother walking up two hills, you told your mother.

You still believe this, but you’ve since developed other concerns.

None of the streetlamps are working and your shadow is beginning to worry you.

You are particularly worried that it may not belong to
you.

It is stretched out in front of you and you don’t remember it looking like that.

Your mother has told you that you’re going through a late growth spurt, which is apparently why you keep walking into doorframes.

This might, might, account for the fact that your shadow’s limbs are unnaturally long and moving in ways you don’t recognize.

It does not account for your shadow’s head.

Your shadow’s head is freakishly large, weirdly distended, and there are two bumps emerging from the top of it.

You try not to speculate about the bumps.

You move your arm. Your shadow moves its arm, maybe a fraction of a second later.

You shiver and fold your arms in front of yourself. Maybe it’s just the way you moved, but your shadow seems to swell.

You stop. The sound of your footsteps seems to continue a little longer than it should. When you start to walk again, the noise echoes a little more...





Ready to leap into the world of Luke's Alice?

Amazon, iTunes, and Smashwords are taking pre-orders now for the ebook and paperback links will follow soon!

Sunday, April 12, 2015

BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT EXCERPT: The Watchmaker's Ball

Christine Norris took history and connected it with fantasy to craft another intriguing steampunk read for BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT. The following excerpt is from her contribution to this Alice-in-Wonderland inspired anthology.


The Watchmaker's Ball


“Stand straight, Alice. Slouching isn’t proper for a lady.”

“I’m not a lady,” Alice grumbled. She didn’t know how her posture could be less than poker-straight, considering the amount of muscle that had gone into lacing her corset. She dragged her feet as she followed her mother and older sister across Fairmount Park, through the crowds, and toward her doom.

“Alice Elizabeth Purcell, I won’t talk to you again. Keep
up.”

Alice tried not to roll her eyes and trudged on. Ever since her older sister, Katharine, had talked to that boy at the bookshop, she had been begging their mother to take them to the Centennial Exposition. So here Alice was, on her way to an afternoon of torture and utter despair.

The Women’s Pavilion.

Alice had come along hoping she would get to glimpse the amazing machines on display in the Machinery Hall, but they were on the other side of the fairgrounds. She had begged her mother to let her go see it, but her mother had forbidden it.

“It’s not proper for a young lady of your station to be looking at dirty machines.”


Ready to discover more and find out if Christine's Alice will do what's proper or not? Amazon and Smashwords are taking pre-orders already! Links for the paperback will be available soon!

Saturday, April 11, 2015

BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT Excerpt: White is a Human Construct

Laura Lascarso's short story takes readers into a Wonderland and adds a dash of darkness to BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT. The following is an excerpt from that story.


White is a Human Construct




The October sky was as crisp as a red apple. The morning light sliced through the overgrown yard, causing every shape and shadow to stand out in high contrast, including the white rabbit.

At first Alice thought it was a stuffed animal propped up inside a ramshackle hutch with a piece of roofing nailed to the top and hardware cloth stapled across the front. But as Alice approached, she saw that it was, in fact, alive. Its whiskers twitched, its mouth moved as if nibbling a blade of grass, and one ear fell forward rather sloppily.

“Curious and curiouser,” Alice whispered and glanced toward the house. Mrs. Miller had passed away months ago and the house had been vacant ever since, or so Alice had thought. The weeds grew to the tops of her navy kneesocks and tickled the backs of her legs as she hurried past the rabbit and onto Bradford Hills Preparatory School.

At school Alice kept her head down in the hallways and her nose in a book in class. The rumor mill still churned out stories about Alice’s stepfather, Congressman Shipley, each one more outrageous than the last. The circumstances of a high-profile politician leaving their small town so suddenly, and in the midst of a campaign for re-election, proved too mysterious for anyone to let fade away.

“I heard her mother caught him with another woman.”

“I heard it was Alice who caught him, and it was her mother’s sister.”

Alice didn’t elaborate upon or deny the stories, for as terrible as they were, their speculations were much safer than the truth.





Ready to learn the truth behind Laura's Alice? iTunesSmashwords and Amazon are taking orders now!

BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT Excerpt: Mustang Alice

The following is an excerpt from Medeia Sharif's short story for BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT, our Alice-in-Wonderland inspired anthology releasing April 14th. 

Mustang Alice 


“Come on, Alice, stop daydreaming. Out, girl. Let’s get us some snacks and be back on the road.”

Alice looked at the speaker, Maizie, the most aggressive girl in their group. Maizie had long, curly strawberry blond hair and fierce freckles. She also wore a frown. She didn’t care too much for Alice.

“Ugh, don’t blame me if you’re hungry and need to pee hours later,” Maizie said. “Loser,” came out under her breath.

Alice frowned. Folding a corner of a page from a book she was reading, she closed it and looked out the window. The group of fifty classmates and four chaperones was headed to Orlando for a fun weekend stay. Alice wasn’t looking forward to getting there. She wasn’t interested in water rides or roller coasters. She was happy being a homebody, studying hours a night. That’s how she ended up on this field trip. Their school was rewarding students for top grades. Alice had never wanted to sign the field trip form, but her mother smiled, thinking it would be a good idea for her to go.

“You never go out much,” her mother had said. “Something’s missing in your life. You need to go out more often.” She’d even hand delivered the field trip form to the main office to ensure that they received it on her daughter’s behalf.

Alice cracked open the window. Sitting next to Maizie had been no easy task. The first hour, Maizie had been asleep. Many of them had been, since they’d arrived at the school to board the bus at six that morning to get to Orlando before noon. Then the second hour, Maizie had been nasty, giving her snide looks and making remarks about Alice’s mousy hair, pale skin, and nose in a book.

It was a cold February day, with one of those rare cold fronts that descends on Florida. People wore sweaters and jackets. A line formed outside both restrooms, people hugging themselves and even shivering. The bus driver also got off the bus to go to the restroom. They were somewhere in Central Florida. The thrum of cars driving over the speed limit caused vibrations at the service plaza in the middle of the highway.

A yard from the bus, a driver of a shiny black Mustang parked next to a fuel pump. A middle-aged man with a paunch stepped out. He pulled his jeans up, but didn’t manage to yank them across his middle. The belt slid down and settled underneath his stomach. He wiped his nose with a finger, adjusted his sunglasses, and walked inside.

Alice admired the car, her eyes scouring back and forth the onyx length of it. On the dashboard was a stuffed white rabbit, which didn’t match the man who exited the car. Her eyes narrowed on it, because it looked familiar. It reminded Alice of her own stuffed white rabbit from childhood. She carried it back and forth between her parents’ homes when she stayed with her mother on weekdays and her father on weekends. She took it with her to elementary school. Then in the third grade, during recess, someone stole it. A boy with a wicked smirk and mad eyes knocked her to the ground and grabbed it. She cried and complained to a teacher, but no one did anything and she never saw the rabbit again.


Ready to take a ride with Medeia's Alice? iTunesAmazon and Smashwords are taking orders now!

BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT Excerpt: Alice in Wilderland

Author Jessica Bayliss created a wonderful but dangerous Wonderland for BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT in this contemporary with romantic elements. The following is an excerpt from her story.


Alice in Wilderland


Alice snapped off another shot and checked the image in her camera’s viewfinder. The light was wrong. She adjusted some settings and brushed a furry caterpillar off her subject, the rare Adders-Mouth orchid, an endangered species in the state of Connecticut. Or, at least she thought it was an Adders-Mouth.

She plucked a waxen petal and pinched it, releasing a delicate cucumber fragrance. Now she had no doubt the tiny bloom was one of the rare specimens on her list. And in another minute, she’d have the perfect pic to bring back to the Wilderland Ecological Society, the group that had arranged this weekend trip.

She glanced toward the path. There was no sign of her group through the thick growth of trees and brush. She was so not supposed to lag behind. Brooks was going to chew her out for sure, but if she got this shot, it would be worth their guide’s legendary wrath. Alice was determined to get into a top ecology program when she applied to colleges this year, and this summer elective was just the kind of extracurricular all the best schools liked to see.

Not to mention the fact that Alice needed something to fill her time, occupy her mind until the day she could get out of here for good.


Ready to explore Wilderland with Jessica's Alice? Amazon and Smashwords are both accepting pre-orders for the ebook version--and the paperback links will follow soon!

Friday, April 10, 2015

BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT Excerpt: Alice, Last of the Beating Hearts

Below is an excerpt from author David Turnbull's short story for our Alice-in-Wonderland inspired anthology, Beware the Little White Rabbit. 


Alice, Last of the Beating Hearts




There came a crack like thunder.

A rabbit hole, launched from its orbital warren, streaked down through the clouds. It hung in the air like a frozen fork of lightning. Beneath the helmet that Hatter had made for her, Alice felt the root ends of her hair tingle from the electrical change that accompanied its arrival. What appeared to be a stuffed white rabbit tumbled earthward. Payload delivered, the hole rapidly lost its integrity and dissolved into a glimmering fragment that dissipated on the wind.

Alice crouched low amongst the ruins as the rabbit sniffed the air, internal sensors trying to get a fix on her location. She clutched her vorpal sword. The pistons on the rabbit’s spring-loaded flanks gave a venomous hiss as it launched itself into a powerful leap.
Author David Turnbull

It landed not far from her on an ivy-strangled hillock of fallen masonry, infrared eyes glowing red as it scanned for signs of body heat. Above its white head, on what was left of a concrete wall, a faded and tattered poster depicted a bottle of amber liquid, alongside the legendary Drink Mead®.


Ready to see that vorpal sword in action? Amazon, iTunes, and Smashwords are taking orders!

BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT Excerpt: The Aviary

The following is an excerpt from Crystal Schubert's short story. It's included in our Alice-in-Wonderland inspired anthology, BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT.

The Aviary 


I trail my fingers along the rough hedges. Clouds cloak the castle turrets, reaching their foggy fingers down to brush the top of the glass aviary. Echoes of our chickens bounce between the dried-out shrubbery and barren plots. The overcast sky saps any warmth from the air, and even vibrant spring sun can’t edge through.

I note the servant’s position, harvesting carrots in the small plot I built. Not much of our soil is rich enough to support food, but I’ve been rotating the crop across a few different sections of garden. Min is already on duty, holding a woven basket, his thin arms shaking under the weight. Even from here, I can tell he wants to drop the basket, but he will not. I would set the basket down, take a break, but sweet Min can deny himself every comfort if he believes someone else will benefit.

They are engaged in the harvest, and I slip through a hole in the hedge, branches scraping across my gown and snagging on my cloak, until I’m in Mother’s sanctuary. If anyone remembers this small, hidden garden is here, they’ve not said as much. I’ve not seen a soul here after Mother passed away. The fountain is green with algae, but this sanctuary has the only blossoming flowers that remain. Violets and Bleeding Hearts. They come each spring, and I think Mother is still here somewhere, willing them to sprout.

Ivy tangles around the dirty birch trellises. A thin floral scent lingers, barely detectable, but enough to dredge up the fragile memory of Mother’s skirt folds. The overgrown greenery reminds me, despite stagnancy inside the castle, life marches on.

I pull my cloak tight around me, like an embrace, and sit on a stone bench to wait.

A few moments later, the tall outer hedges rustle and then a whisper:

“Alice?”

“Diana?”

“King Jasper, King Luca, Queen Wen in a trance...”

I smile. It is Diana. I whisper back my half of the rhyme. “Ate all of the banquet and split down their pants!” 

We stifle our giggles. It’s immature, at our age, to delight in such drollery, but there’s little amusement to be found elsewhere. My hand finds hers through the prickly hedge, and we link pinkies. Her skin is velvet against mine. The first time we held hands, when we were younger, I washed ten times. I thought I brought plague into the castle, and I was up all night, watching for fever or skin lesions or ragged coughing. But now I trust Diana.

Anyway, we’ve never spoken of plague. She doesn’t ask why I’m behind these walls, and I don’t ask why she comes to visit me. I know when she first found the hedge and heard me crying in Mother’s sanctuary, she envied me for living in a fairy tale. I envied her adventures. We wove our experiences together and built beautiful stories through the hedge. Faraway lands and brave knights and lost girls.

“I thought of you yesterday,” she tells me. “I swam at Cherry Lake and anchored myself behind the waterfalls. The mist sprayed my face. I remembered what you said about missing the rain.”

“Father doesn’t like us to get cold and wet. After Mother, he worries,” I say absently as I try to imagine Diana in the lake. It’s been so long since I’ve seen waterfalls, but I can still picture them – rushing water, sliding around rocks and flinging itself off cliffs.

It’s Diana I can’t picture.



Crystal Schubert
Are you ready to meet Diana and decide if Alice should stay or go? iTunesSmashwords and Amazon are accepting orders now for BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT!

BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT Excerpt: They Call Me Alice

This excerpt is from our Alice-in-Wonderland inspired anthology, BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT, written by talented author C. Lee McKenzie.


They Call Me Alice


They call me Alice, but that’s not my real name. It’s a convenient one, one that my Kansas parents can easily say. Sing Yanyu is what my mother called me. For a while after she was gone, I dreamed the melody of her voice, but I can’t hear those sounds anymore. My ears have lost all their music.

“Alice?”

That’s Betsy. She and her husband, Mark, brought me here from my true home a few months ago. They’re very nice. I live in a big house with clean water and a soft bed.

No. I don’t live here.

Sixteen-year-old Alice does.

Each day I grow more confused about who I really am.

“Alice, are you ready? It’s time.”

Betsy’s enrolling me in a new high school. I failed badly in the first one, and as I hurry to meet her at the front door, I see worry etched across her forehead. She doesn’t want me to fail again.



Ready to join Lee's Alice on her journey into a much different world?

You can order the ebook version of BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT on Smashwords, iTunes, and Amazon now. Pre-orders for paperbacks will be available soon!

BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT Excerpt: Follow the Steam Rabbit

The following is an excerpt from author Liam Hogan's short story which is included in our Alice-in-Wonderland inspired anthology, BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT.


Follow the Steam Rabbit


Alice peered over the top of her book as the rabbit – white, about three feet tall, and standing erect on its hind legs – went rushing by. It stopped a little way ahead of her, pulled a pocket watch on a chain from its oversized waistcoat, and hopped in alarm. After announcing in a metallic, clanking voice just how late it was, it rushed off in a cloud of steam, with only a sly backwards glance of a pinkly glowing lens to show that it was even aware she existed.

She sighed, made a mental note of her page number, 345, easy enough to remember being half as large as the sum of its proper divisors, and put the book down on the root of the tree that shaded her reading spot, before setting off in pursuit.

It was obviously one of Uncle Charles’s inventions: a steam-powered, oversized mechanical rabbit indeed. But without a closer look, she couldn’t tell if it was malfunctioning or merely following its creator’s increasingly bizarre instructions.

When she had been younger and not much taller than that fur-covered automaton, she’d delighted in her uncle’s flights of fancy and in the marvelous inventions that came out of his underground workshop. Indeed, it was this inspiration that had turned her inquisitive young mind to the pursuit of science and to mechanical textbooks such as the one she had just abandoned on the riverbank.

But her uncle’s genius never seemed to go anywhere; he might as well have been a mere toymaker. That would have suited his childish delight in getting each new clockwork or steam-powered device to work. Such a waste. For Professor Charles Dodgson, engineering was merely an enjoyable diversion, a way of entertaining his mind while not engaged on the latest arcane mathematical challenge. Whereas it seemed to Alice that his dusty dry mathematics ought to be relegated to his moments of leisure and he should give himself over fully to his inventions, he seemed blind to his own genius, to the concept that his mechanical marvels could in a very real way free mankind from its arduous toil, from the dangerous and menial burden of manual work.

Alice would not make the same mistake.



Ready to Leap down the rabbit hole and adventure with Liam's undoubtedly clever Alice? Smashwords and Amazon are accepting pre-orders for the ebook now, with paperback pre-order links soon to be available!

BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT Excerpt: Alice, through the Wormhole

This excerpt comes from our Alice-in-Wonderland inspired anthology, BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT and is written by popular YA author Charlotte Bennardo

Alice, through the Wormhole


It was seedy, even for a bar; dim enough to hide the dirt, smoky enough to blur faces, and loud enough not to overhear the illicit trading. Drinks were overpriced and watered down, but for making deals that were best kept secret, this place was golden.

The scariest aspect was the clientele. Murderers, slave traffickers, drug dealers, and mercenaries – all in a mix of worse scum. Keeping one hand on her blaster was a justifiable precaution. It also let anyone who looked her way know she wouldn’t go without a fight.

An Oryctolagian, a species resembling a white rabbit once popular on the now-dead Earth but here as big as a human, hopped past, his gravity boots clunking heavily on the stone floor. She had no use for the creatures. Sneaks, thieves, and liars, they fit in with these bottom-feeders. The only good Oryctolagian was a stuffed one – on the dinner table.

Alice rolled the grimy glass between her hands. No way would she drink it. Everyone knew that consuming anything in this place carried a certain risk. One never knew what might happen. Bartenders could be bought off to slip something in that would knock you out, alter your appearance – or kill you. But to not buy anything would insult both the bartender and the mysterious owner who’d appear by hologram to remind you that you hadn’t purchased a beverage or worse, a dish, from this fine establishment. It was safer – and cheaper – to order the swill. As always, before she left, she’d “accidentally” spill it onto the table sticky with previously slopped libations and leave a generous tip to cover the housekeeping expense. 
She looked at her chronometer again. 

Her dealer was late.



Ready to Leap in and pre-order your copy of BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT?

Smashwords, iTunes, and Amazon are selling ebooks now. For those of us dying to hold a paper book--hold on a little longer, it's nearly ready for pre-order, too, and we will share links as soon as it is!

BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT Excerpt: Undercover Alice

This excerpt from Jennifer Moore's short story (included in our Alice-in-Wonderland inspired anthology) features Alice as an intrepid young reporter on her way to discovering a much weirder story than she expected!

Undercover Alice


WELCOME TO WONDERLAND, says the glittery banner stretched across the entrance. THE HOME OF HAT COUTURE. Wow. This place looks even bigger and swankier in real life. And the short, scared-looking girl staring back at me from the mirror
ed windows seems even more terrified than the last time I looked. Maybe just one more equipment inspection to steady my nerves:

Swanky new camera phone?

Check.

Embarrassing lucky troll charm from an old cereal box?

Check.

Courage to actually see this thing through?

Damn it, I knew I’d forgotten something. Maybe I should just turn round now and forget all about it. There must be a hundred other stories I could be reporting on instead, a hundred other ways to impress Jason.

Alice, if you can get us the inside scoop on the Maddy Hatter launch at Wonderland, it’ll be the biggest story since the skinny-dipping scandal of 2012. Bigger maybe. After all, if there’s one thing the students of Dodgson High like even more than naked Spanish teachers in the school pool, it’s celebrity gossip. And gossip follows that woman round like a bad smell. Get me the lowdown on her new hat range and a picture of Dana Duchess and I’ll be your slave for life.

Heart beating twice as fast at the merest thought of Jason Hopper?

Check.

Okay, deep breath. I can do this. I can. Just walk right in like I’m supposed to be there and see how far I get.

I mean, what’s the worst that can happen?



Ready to get the whole story along with Jennifer's Alice? iTunesSmashwords and Amazon are accepting orders now for BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT!